Friday, December 30, 2011

Stop and Stare

The reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to Titus that we have just heard begins solemnly with the word apparuit, which then comes back again in the reading at the Dawn Mass: apparuit – there has appeared.

This is a programmatic word, by which the Church seeks to express synthetically the essence of Christmas. Formerly, people had spoken of God and formed human images of him in all sorts of different ways. God himself had spoken in many and various ways to mankind (cf. Heb 1:1 – Mass during the Day). But now something new has happened: he has appeared. He has revealed himself. He has emerged from the inaccessible light in which he dwells. He himself has come into our midst. This was the great joy of Christmas for the early Church: God has appeared. No longer is he merely an idea, no longer do we have to form a picture of him on the basis of mere words. He has appeared. But now we ask: how has he appeared? Who is he in reality? The reading at the Dawn Mass goes on to say: ‘the kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed’ (Tit 3:4). For the people of pre-Christian times, whose response to the terrors and contradictions of the world was to fear that God himself might not be good either, that he too might well be cruel and arbitrary, this was a real epiphany, the great light that has appeared to us: God is pure goodness. Today too, people who are no longer able to recognize God through faith are asking whether the ultimate power that underpins and sustains the world is truly good, or whether evil is just as powerful and primordial as the good and the beautiful which we encounter in radiant moments in our world. The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed: this is the new, consoling certainty that is granted to us at Christmas.

Homily, Midnight Mass, December 25, 2011

Reflection – God really is mysterious, isn’t He? I see this more and more clearly as life goes on. So many things happen, both in the world at large and in our own personal lives, that make the whole business of God, and hence Meaning, Truth, Goodness… well, very mysterious, to say the least.

It’s not a question of constantly having crises of faith, of being beset by doubts and constantly risking a lapse into atheistic nihilism. In some ways, that’s a cheap path out of the mysteriousness of life. After all, to simply throw up one’s hands and say, ‘well, there is no God then, and hence no real Meaning to it all!’ is one way to ‘solve’ the problem. There is no solution.

Or we can just not think too hard about it, not pay too close attention to it all. This is easier to do when one’s own immediate life is going all right; not so easy to do when sorrow and distress bust through your front door and stage a home invasion of you and yours. For many who choose the path of superficiality and unthinking, this is when faith fails.

It is really mysterious. As the Pope so beautifully reflects, and will continue to reflect in this homily, the mystery is not so much solved as deepened and made into a mystery of beauty, a luminous mystery, by this baby, this child, this strange Jesus who presents himself to us in this feast.

God has appeared—and his appearance makes the whole business of life, the world, pain and evil, sorrow and darkness, love and loss more mysterious. But a mystery in which we can find hope. We stare and stare at the little baby in the crib, in the manger, and something happens to us. We start to know that God is with us.

We still don’t know much. We don’t really know ‘what’ God is, or how his goodness and light are making their way through our lives and the life of the world. But we stare and stare at the baby, and we come to believe that He is here, anyhow. We are not alone, anyhow. And something is happening—slowly, strangely, in a fashion hard to see, hard to discern, but it is happening. Love grows, as we stop and stare at this strange appearance of God in our midst. Love grows, and with love, peace, joy, hope, and trust that as we stay with Him and keep staring, He will finally make all things well and gather all creation to Himself.

1 comment:

From what I understand, we are conduits of God’s grace and we transmit this grace to others. I now understand, to whom much is given much is expected. I think I understand a person stuck in self absorption is a painful existence. Stuck in self, screaming on the inside, but doesn’t let the outside world know. They are generally acting out the pain in dysfunctional ways, enduring the best they can just waiting to be released from a bondage of self. So tragic as young children they have not been affirmed. So many parents having had not received their own goodness reflected back to them, had nothing to give away to their children. God is pure goodness and everyday he made and it was good - He made us and we were good. It is only through others by being affirmed of our goodness do we die of self. Then we are truly reborn. When one gives his or her life in a sacrificial manner to the other, then love, true unconditional love is then transmitted where by releasing the other of this bondage of self. Who would have thought being born into this world is the first birth, but this second birth, comes in the flesh through the other – that is if they come to us in the image and likeness of God.

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This blog was first called 'Life With a German Shepherd,'and was exclusively dedicated to promoting the writings of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI. Upon his resignation on February 28, 2013, the name and focus changed, and it was called Ten Thousand Places, broadening out the search for God's face and God's truth to a multitude of writers and artists who have reflected this in various ways.

In January 2015, feeling a need for a new departure in blogging, I re-named the blog 'Getting to the Point', now placing the emphasis on basic catechesis, evangelization, and a constant search for the essential matter of God, man, Church, world, and life. I hope you enjoy it.